


Sometimes the Devil

by dawnstruck



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 7x17-Coda, F/M, Gen, Gore, Hallucifer, M/M, Mental Institutions, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 19:42:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnstruck/pseuds/dawnstruck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the devil wears wears familiar faces. - Coda to 7x17 - The Born-Again Identity</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes the Devil

**Author's Note:**

> This is not overly brutal, but it does contain things such as blood-drinking, torture and minor cannibalism, so if you are overly squeamish you should probably not read it. Otherwise, please enjoy.

Sometimes the devil wears familiar faces.

 

Castiel is quietly sitting in his hospital bed and Lucifer will turn into many persons, like the actors in a stage play, putting on different masks for different roles, just like they did back in ancient Greece.

But Lucifer is so convincing that Cas tends to forget it's not real. It feels real, though. Some of it must be real for it is based on memories, on things that actually happened.

Lucifer replays entire conversations, the look of betrayal on Dean's face, the grace fading out of Balthazar's borrowed body.

It's all there, all of the time, and Castiel watches because there is nothing else to do.

 

Sometimes he sees Dean shooting Sam with the Colt, but Sam gets back up, and Dean pulls the trigger again, over and over. The gun shots are anticipated, but Cas still flinces every time, the noise reverbarating in the empty room.

Sometimes Dean is on the floor, Sam standing above him in a white suit, putting a foot on Dean's neck, and all Cas can hear is Sam's tender smile and bones snapping under too much pressure.

 

There is Meg, with her thorny beauty, and Dean who wears a similar visage, twisted and scarred with the fires of hell, holding a scalpel, a rosary, the amulet he used to carry around his neck.

Castiel can see it burning, hot hot hot, through the fabric of Dean's shirt, scalding just one more mark directly beneath his collar bone.

God is near and non-existent. God is dead and the gardener knows it.

"I am your new God," Castiel says with his hollow mouth, "Kneel and profess your love unto me."

Bobby kneels, his face shadowed under his trucker hat. Sam kneels, his eyes shielded by his hair. But Dean, Dean does not kneel. So Castiel makes him, breaks his legs and burns the eyes out of his skull so they won't keep staring at him, burns them out by showing him his true grace, and Dean should be grateful for the mercy that is bestowed unto him.

Castiel's own cries for mercy have the nurses come rushing in, dosing him with drugs that make his mind slow and his agony slower.

 

Bobby Singer is dead. Bobby Singer has a single bullet blasting apart the brain of a man who had previously only been taken down by the devil himself.

Snap, his neck goes. The wheels of his wheel chair keep squeaking over the linoleum floor. The hole in his forehead oozes thick, black blood.

Bobby Singer is a ghost and Castiel wonders whether Dean even knows about that. They hadn't talked about it, talked only about the monsters in Sam's head instead of the spirit in Dean's pocket, stubbornly clinging to an old, banged-up flask.

Dean is drinking himself to his death with every sip he takes from that flask and Bobby is inadvertably aiding him in that process.

But Castiel opened the door to Purgatory and let out Leviathan who shot Bobby Singer.

Castiel killed Bobby by not being strong enough. Castiel drove Sam into madness by betraying his friends. Castiel breaks Dean into many tiny pieces in many different ways.

 

“You'd think we have so much in common,“ Lucifer muses lazily from where he is perched on Castiel's shoulder.

“You know, both of us rebels, going up against heaven, only earning the scorn of our brothers, being banished to... much lower levels,“ he sighs, his shoulders heaving in exageration, “But the thing is, I fell because I hated the humans. You fell because you loved them. Funny how things turn out, right?“

Lucifer is the only one who laughs.

 

“May I call Dean?“ Cas asks Meg one day and she shrugs, tossing him her phone, “Knock yourself out.“

He takes it and stares at it and suddenly he has no idea what he would even say.

“I changed my mind,“ he decides and hands the phone back.

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head, “You're hopeless, Clarence.“

 

His white, white room is full of shadow and full of blinding light.

Castiel knows that he is the shadow and he is battling his brothers who fight back and don't fight back and die at his hands, their wings scorched into the walls, the floor, the ceiling, until everything is black black black.

He stabs Balthazar and Rachel and Raphael and Michael and Lucifer and Uriel and Anael and Zachariah and all the others that have fallen. He even stabs Gabriel who laughs as he dies and says "Knew you had it in you, baby bro."

But for every kill, Cas riddles himself with wounds, the blade of his bloodied knife digging deeply into his own flesh instead of theirs.

He is the messiah, bearing the stigma of his crimes.

 

He eats his food only because Megs tells him that people will think he's starving and then he'll have to constantly be hooked up with an infusion. He dislikes the sight of tiny needles disappearing in his skin, so he eats everything they bring him, the green, tasteless jell-o, the salty tomato soup that looks like blood, the sandwich that is crawling with maggots.

The maggots are crawling their way down his throat, are twisting and turning in his stomach, are growing and mutating until they are Leviathan pushing against the confines of his flesh.

 

He counts sheep when he is bored. The sheep are only imaginary, just like everything else is.

 

“Hey, Clarence,“ Meg winks at him, kicking her feet up on his bed and balancing on the hind legs of her chair. The sheets stink of bleach and the demon stinks of sulphur. He is getting used to the smell, though he is missing leather and gun powder.

 

His doctor comes and Castiel watches him unknowingly step into the twisted face of a young woman.

The room is a sea out of the people he killed, the floor plastered with naked bodies, breathing walls of flesh, fluids dripping from the ceiling,  his bed a lonely island in the middle, sheets drenched in blood.

His doctor asks him to please stand up for the examination so Cas does, not even flinching when a hand suddenly closes around his ankle, pulling, pulling.

“Have you had any hallucinations lately?“ his doctor asks, looking at him over the rim of his glasses.

He shakes his head, ignoring the feeling of slowly sinking, “Everything is as it should be.“

 

There's a burning bush in front of him and it's talking to him in Dean's voice.

It's singing a half-remembered song Castiel might have once fallen asleep to in the back of a car.

_I know you and you know me. Tell me what it is you want it to be._

“I don't know,“ Castiel answers truthfully.

 _In the rain, in the streets,_ the bush only mocks him, _You're amazed by all the things you see._

 _Skies on fire,_ Castiel closes his eyes and resists the urge to sing along, _Flames burn higher._

 

“Do you wanna know what I did to Sam in the cage?“ Lucifer asks him cheerily, “Do you wanna know what they did to Dean?“

Castiel refuses to answer.

“I could show you,“ Lucifer offers, inching closer, “I could teach you. You and Dean, you'd finally have a common hobby to talk about. Maybe you could torture each other. I'm sure he'd like that.“

 _He wouldn't,_ Castiel thinks to himself though the devil can probably hear him, _He wouldn't._

 

“Hey, Clarence,“ Meg teases him and he is getting so sick of that name that he shoves her up against the wall and kisses her fiercely. She sticks her tongue into his mouth and he realizes that it's split down the middle, like the tongue of the snake that tempted Eve in paradise.

Only Castiel is not the mother of mankind and this institution is not Eden. He pushes away from her, wipes the back of his hand over his lips, and she winks again.

“Too bad, Clarence,“ she sighs tradically, her human face smug and sassy, “Too bad.“

She is gone when he blinks and he has to wonder whether she was even there in the first place.

 

“Jimmy,“ Amelia says and grasps his hand in hers, “Please come home. Don't leave us again.“

“Emmanuel,“ Daphne says, gripping his other hand, “Who is this woman?“

“Daddy,“ Claire cries, tears in her eyes, tugging at the hem of his white shirt.

“No,“ he shakes his head, overwhelmed, “I am Castiel.“

“Cas, Cas, Cas,“ Lucifer hums condescendingly, “You've become quite the ladies man, haven't you. The Winchesters have taught you well.“

“You just went with those men,“ Amelia complains, “You abandoned your family.“

“You drove off in that awful car,“ Daphne adds, “You chose a stranger over me.“

“He was no stranger,“ Castiel tries to explain, but Claire's sobs and Lucifer's chuckles drown out everything he says. He stops trying.

 

Stubble is growing on his chin and he rubs his knuckles over it.

A nurse that is not Meg brings him his pills in a small plastic cup and he chugs them back without complaint, allows the chemicals to effect his system.

He wonders what it would feel like if he were human, if drugs were able to numb his pain.

He knows that a lot of people consume drugs in order to broaden their horizons, to see things that they would otherwise not see.

Castiel wants drugs for the opposite purpose. He desperately wants to stop seeing things.

Maybe the things are sick of seeing him, too.

 

Lucifer is Michael wearing Dean's face.

"Hey, assbutt," Michael teases with Dean's rough voice, drenching Castiel's wings in holy oil, before setting them aflame with a mere breath.

Castiel idly wonders why his memories of Dean are always connected to fire.

 

“I'm sorry,“ Sam says dispassionately as he places his hand on Castiel's forehead and pushes red veins into his consciousness, “But you brought this onto yourself. You did this to me. This is your fault.“

“This is my fault,“ Cas repeats what he knows to be true, “Without me, none of this would have happened.“

“That's right,“ Sam agrees gently, “You're the one to blame.“

 

On some days, he is made to sit with the other patients in the community room. They play board games and have conversations that don't make sense, but Cas enjoys it because the words in his head make too much sense.

“W-why are you here?“ asks a middle-aged man who stutters most of his sentences.

“I betrayed my friends,“ Castiel answers patiently, “I killed my brothers.“

The man's eyes widen, “R-really? W-why?“

“I am an angel of the Lord,“ Castiel chooses the truth because he has grown to dislike lies, “I fell and strayed from my right path until I could not find my way back.“

“Why did you fall?“ the frail girl with the scars on her pale neck wants to know curiously, though she seems to be indulging him.

Castiel considers this for a moment.

“The devil says I loved too much,“ he replies finally.

No one argues with his reasoning.

 

There once was a car that Castiel considered home. There were three men he considered family.

The only thing he has left is an old trench coat that has faded blood splatters from the people he killed and a hole in the back where Sam stabbed him with Raphael's knife.

There's also a button that used to be lose from days before Jimmy Novak looked up to the sky and said yes. Castiel never bothered to fix that small detail whenever he cleaned up the coat, repaired it after he was shot and crushed and thrown into walls.

Now, though, the button is firmly attached, sewn into the fabric with a differently colored piece of string.

Cas thinks of the trunk of a stolen car, of a family that was one third pleading, one third dead and one third close to breaking in a hospital ward infested by demons.

He runs his fingers over the smooth plastic of the button and remembers the good times that never really were. So far, it's his favourite hallucination.

 

Today Dean is sitting by his side, using Ruby's demon knife to carefully carve banishing sigils into Castiel's pale chest. He is whispering Enochian words that he cannot know, gentle like a lullabye, his free hand on Castiel's brow like a mother soothing her child in sickness.

“Please don't,“ Castiel begs him, though he knows it's futile.

“Shh,“ Dean hushes him and puts the blade aside, only to run his fingers along the bloody trail he has left on the skin, nails digging into the exposed flesh.

“I've always wanted to do this,“ Dean confesses, using words that Castiel might've wished for in a different moment, “When you came to me in Hell, this is all I could think of.“

His eyes darken suddenly and his tone turns angry.

“You got me out, though,“ he snarls, teeth bared like those of a hellhound, “Why did you get me out?“

“Because God commanded it,“ Castiel gasps out, “Because you are the righteous man.“

“Does this strike you as overly righteous?“ Dean asks and then the knife is back, deeply embedded in the angel's abdomen.

“I deserve it,“ he recalls what Sam has already taught him and goes limp, “This is just punishment.“

“You enjoy this,“ Dean realizes with a frown, pulling the weapon back out, “You don't mind the pain because you want to suffer for your crimes. How about this then?“

Dean slices the knife down along the insides of his forearm until warm, red blood gushes out.

“Don't,“ Castiel begs again but then Dean presses his wrist to his mouth.

“Drink,“ he orders, steel in his voice, in his eyes, “Maybe that'll get some humanity in you, you freak.“

So Castiel drinks and thinks of Sam in a panic room, the shadow of a devil's trap caging him. The blood is hot on his lips, hot on his tongue. It drains his strength, and yet the taste is addictive.

“No more,“ he pleads and keeps drinking, until Dean pulls his arm away and Castiel cries out, hungry, helplessly, “No, please, I need more, I need-“

“Now you're human,“ Dean declares with satisfaction, “Only humans need and crave and thirst for all things that destroy them.“

Then he leans in close and covers Castiel's blood-smeared mouth with his own.

No pizza-man or sulphur-stinking demon whore could have prepared the angel for this. Dean's tongue is not forked. It's slick and sly and knows its way around Castiel's mouth, feeling for all the lies that he had told.

Cas breathes in through his nose, his hands coming up to hold on to Dean's shoulder, keeping him in place. Then he bites down visciously, feeling his teeth cutting through the thick muscle of Dean's tongue. Dean freezes, spasms, groans.

“I'm sorry,“ Castiel whispers, swallowing the piece of twitching flesh, gulping down the blood that gushes into his mouth, “I'm so sorry.“

It's him who whispers reassuring platitudes now, peppering Dean's feverish brow with red kisses, holding him in his arms.

Dean stares up at him, moaning wordlessly, his mouth an empty cavern, his eyes bright with shock.

Castiel has a suspicion that the burning bush won't ever sing to him again.

 

The next time Meg brings him food, Castiel only takes a look and then his stomach is heaving.

Meg stares at the vomit in disgust and annoyance, but Cas is only happy that there is not actually any blood mixed in with the bile and his half-digested dinner.

 

When Castiel wakes up after not having slept, he feels warm and cozy. He cannot recall, in his entire life time, ever having felt warm and cozy.

“Morning, Cas,“ Dean greets him with a sleepy voice and rolls over, kissing him with a mouth that has never been mutilated.

There is sunlight streaming in through the half-drawn curtains of their bedroom.

Castiel frowns. His hospital room never had any curtains.

“Whoops,“ Lucifers laughs next to him, snuggling back into the pillows, “My bad.“

The hallucination dissolves and they are back in the bleak, little hospital room. There is no sunshine and there is definitely no Dean.

“Relax,“ Lucifer huffs and crosses his arms behind his head, “I'm trying to do you a favor here. It's very Fairy Godmother, you know. Only you missed your chance at kissing Prince Charming before midnight and now you won't ever get your happy ending.“

“Get out,“ Castiel growls, clenching his fists in the blanket.

“Now, honey, you don't really mean that,“ Lucifer's face morphs back into Dean's, sliding his hand up Cas' chest, tracing the sigils that he'd left there just a little while ago.

“Get out,“ Cas repeats, gritting his teeth.

“If I leave,“ Lucifers tells him, “You'll never see this face again. He won't ever come back to you.“

But Casiel does not listen. He has had enough.

“Get. Out!“

Suddenly there is a loud _PING._

Castiel opens his eyes and sits up in bed.

Meg is lounging in a chair, feet up on his mattress, reading a magazine.

She blinks at him in mild surprise.

“Clarence,“ she says, cocking an eyebrow, but the devil is nowhere to be seen.

“It was only a dream,“ he tells no one in particular.

Meg nods, tossing her magazine aside, “Looks like we're gonny have to call lover boy.“

 

Two days later, Sam and Dean enter through his door.

He pulls them into a hard embrace, trying to assert whether they are real or not.

“Pull my finger,“ he tells Dean because it's safer than _Please don't leave me again_ or _I have tasted your blood on my lips._

Dean pulls and the light bulbs burst. The Winchesters flinch. It's okay. They'll learn to adept to his new-found humor soon enough.

For now he is content with the button on his coat, Sam's tentative smile, the tip of Dean's tongue that nervously darts out to lick over his lower lip.

Cas stares a little.

No, he reminds himself. It was only a figment of his broken mind, and there it shall stay.

Lucifer is known for telling lies. Fallen angels seem to have that in common.

“Well, it's certainly good to have you back,“ Dean offers and Cas could never ask for more.

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up being Dean/Castiel all by itself. Originally it was only supposed to be hinting at it. But oh well, what can ya do.  
> I kinda felt like Castiel's 'insanity' was never quite explained.  
> At the end of 7x17 he is shown to see Lucifer, later sitting blankly on his bed.  
> Later, in 7x21, he mentions that he 'woke up' after the Winchstester discovered the tablet. However, he seems to have interacted with Meg and knows his way around the institution, so what kind of state did he have to wake up from?  
> I'll just assume that the hallucinations stopped when he heard the ping, though their effects still take hold afterwards.


End file.
